Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
A simple road-longevity fix: Thicker asphalt
From UNH News Service: As the summer months heat up, so will the asphalt and other materials used to make roads, and climate change is just making it worse. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire say because of this one of the best ways to extend the life...
Without capacitors from Concord, there’s no moon landing
Lots and lots of companies provided equipment that helped put Neil and Buzz on the moon 50 years ago, and I have profiled a local example: Sprague Electric's plant in Concord made Apollo's capacitors, small electricity-storing-and-discharging units that are vital to...
NH women are more educated than men but earn less
An analysis of Census Bureau data by N.H. Employment Security shows that, on average, women in New Hampshire are more educated than men but their full-time salaries are less, partly because of pay differences in the fields where many of them work (e.g., construction...
Direction-variable base running will save America’s pastime
Baseball is boring and getting boring-er, and people aren't watching it. Fortunately, I have the solution, which I first put forward two summers ago. To save you clicking through to the column, I'll reprint it here: This column is for geeks, who like innovative ideas...
A special Science Cafe will talk about moon landings – then and (maybe) now
As the anniversary of the moon landing approaches, I promise not to bore you with stories of watching it on a black-and-white TV and dreaming about cool space stuff yet to come. Instead, I promise to excite you with a special Science Cafe in which you – yes, you! –...
Check the windsock – lightning killed the airport weather station
It appears that a nearby lightning strike fried the electronics on the automated weather station at Concord airport last week, as I reported in the Monitor. It's waiting for specialty parts and won't be back up until later this week. In the meantime, pilots might need...
“Forever chemicals” are showing up in agriculture
The chemicals known collectively as PFAS - "forever chemicals" in some nomenclature because they don't really break down in the environment - are causing lots of headaches because they're showing up in groundwater. Turns out, they're showing up elsewhere, too, as...
Using waste heat is easy, right? Right?
Using "waste heat" from a power plant to do useful stuff sounds really straightforward to somebody like me, who has never had to do it. Then I read this long article in Biomass Magazine about the Burgess Biopower Plant in Berlin, which has a lot of adjacent land for...
Augmented reality can be eyes for the blind
Augmented reality, in which technology shows us extra information as we make our way through the world, might be a cool concept but so far it’s kind of a dud, since the biggest impact has been “Pokemon Go.” Is finding invisible monsters in the street with a smartphone...
Cougars will be here eventually – meaning they’re not here now
The Union-Leader, which knows an audience-drawing topic when it sees one, has been going all in with stories about people in the Sunapee area who think they've seen a mountain lion. The latest story came Monday and in a backhanded way it acknowledged that all these...
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